Atanasoff–Berry Computer

Kinda unrelated but this makes me realize how fortuitous it was that the development of transistors happened around same time as computers, considering that they were essentially two completely separate fields. From a quick glance on wikipedia, we had commercial vacuum tube computers for less than a decade (IBM 701 in 1952 to IBM 7070 in 1958).

If this was an interesting read, the book The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story goes into tremendous detail and depth.

That RAM implementation seems so close to modern DRAM: rows of capacitors that are periodically refreshed with read/write cycles. Just louder, and more dynamic.

Always fascinated to read the electromechanical solutions to computing problems: they're like a steampunk reality.